![]() ![]() ![]() They write: "she demonizes Catholicism as the most-up-to-date mythology - and along with it, civilization as a whole. ![]() The essay ( Excursus II) "Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality" in Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) analyzes Juliette as the embodiment of the philosophy of enlightenment. Napoleon ordered the arrest of the author, and as a result de Sade was incarcerated without trial for the last thirteen years of his life. The second encounter is with Catherine the Great, the Empress of Russia.īoth Justine and Juliette were published anonymously. This is a presumed reference to Wilhelmina of Prussia, Princess of Orange, who married the last Dutch Stadtholder, William V of Orange in 1767, and was still alive when Juliette was published thirty years later. The first is with "Princess Sophia, niece of the King of Prussia," who has just married "the Stadtholder" at the Hague. Soon after this, the male character Brisatesta narrates two scandalous encounters. Their conversation ends (like nearly every scene in the narrative) with an orgy, in which Pope Pius is portrayed as a secret libertine. The heroine repeatedly addresses the Pope by his legal name "Braschi." She also flaunts her learning with a verbal, yet highly detailed, catalogue of alleged immoralities committed by his papal predecessors. She also becomes acquainted with Minski, a gigantic ogre-like Muscovite who delights in raping and torturing young boys and girls to death before eating them.Ī long audience with Pope Pius VI is one of the more extensive scenes in Juliette. She meets Saint Fond, a 50-year-old multi-millionaire who murders his father, commits incest with his daughter, tortures young girls to death on a daily basis, and even plots an ambitious scheme to provoke a famine that will wipe out half the population of France. ![]() She befriends the ferocious Clairwil, whose main passion is the murder of boys and young men, as revenge for the generalīrutality of men toward women. There are plenty of similar philosophical musings during the book, all attacking the ideas of God, morals, remorse, love, etc., the overall conclusion being that the only aim in life is "to enjoy oneself at no matter whose expense." Juliette takes this to the extreme and manages to murder her way through numerous people, including various family members and friends.ĭuring Juliette's life from age 13 to about 30, the wanton anti-heroine engages in virtually every form of depravity and encounters a series of like-minded libertines. However, at age thirteen she is seduced by a woman who immediately explains that morality, religion and other such concepts are meaningless. ![]()
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